Kiss of Death (9 page)

As careful as Amelie was, she’d never take the risk. No, Myrnin, of everybody in Morganville, would be the next to last to leave, right before Amelie herself. He was her—pet? No, that wasn’t right. Her
asset.

It had never really occurred to Claire that he might not altogether like that.

“Sorry,” she said softly. He waved at her, a shooing motion that left her feeling a little lost. She genuinely liked Myrnin, even though she was always intensely aware, these days, of the limits of that friendship—and of the dangers. “Call me if you—”

“Why? So you’ll come running back to Morganville?” He shook his head. “Not likely. And not necessary. Just go, Claire. I’ll be here.”

There was a grim sound to that she didn’t like, but it was getting late. Michael had said to be ready at six, and she needed to pack for the trip.

When she looked back, Myrnin had given up the pretense of reading and was just staring off into the distance. There was something horribly sad about his expression, and she almost turned back....

But she didn’t.

T
he Glass House was chaos when Claire opened the door. Mostly that was Eve and Shane, fighting stereo wars and yelling at each other upstairs. Eve was favoring Korn; Shane was fighting back by blasting “Macarena” at the limit of the boom box knob. There was no sign of Michael, but his guitars were cased and sitting in the living room, along with a duffel bag and a rolling cooler that looked like it could hold any normal drinks. Claire just wasn’t sure what it
did
hold, and she didn’t open it to find out.

She dropped her backpack, which she figured she’d take anyway, and jogged upstairs. Eve was standing in a pile of clothes, an open suitcase on the bed, holding two identical-looking shirts and frowning at them. Terminal fashion indecision. Claire dashed in, tapped her right hand, and Eve gave her a grateful grin and tossed the shirt into the suitcase. The music was so loud, conversation was impossible.

As she passed Shane’s door, she saw him sprawled on his bed. He had a duffel bag, like Michael’s but brown instead of blue. He looked bored, but he brightened up when he saw her.

“Seriously?” she yelled. “‘The Macarena’?”

“It’s war,” he yelled back. “I had to bring out the heavy artillery. Next up, Barry Manilow!”

Claire hit the POWER button on the stereo, leaving Korn thundering victoriously through the house. After a second or two, Eve turned it down. “See how easy that was?” Claire said.

“What, giving up? Giving up is
always
easy. It’s the peace that follows that sucks.” Shane slithered off the bed and followed her as she headed for her room. “How was it?”

“What?”

“Everything.”

“You know.” She shrugged. “Normal.” Yeah. She’d manipulated the second most powerful vampire in town into taking her side against a psycho bitch-queen sorority girl. She’d talked rationally about putting people’s brains into computers. This was a normal day. No wonder she was screwed up. “How was yours?”

“Brisket. Chopping block. Cleaver. It’s all good. You packed yet?”

“Did you just see me walk in?”

“Oh. Yeah. Guess not, then.”

He parked himself on her bed, flopped out again as she opened up her one battered suitcase and began filling it. That wasn’t tough; unlike Eve, she wasn’t a clothes fanatic. She had a couple of decent shirts, a bunch of not-so-great ones, and some jeans. She put in her one skirt, along with the shoes that matched it, and the fishnet tights. Shane watched, hands laced behind his head.

“You’re not going to try to tell me what to take?” she asked. “Because I figured that was why you followed me.”

“Do I look crazy? I followed you because your bed is more comfortable.” His smile widened. “Wanna see?”

“Not right now.”

“Last chance before we hit the road.”

“Stop it!”

“Stop what?”

“Looking so ...” She couldn’t think of a word. He looked just as ridiculously hot to her now as he had this morning, when it had been so tough to leave. And that was a good thing. “I’ve got to get stuff out of the bathroom.”

“Good luck. I think Eve took everything already except the aftershave.”

Actually, Eve hadn’t; it was just that Claire didn’t have a whole lot. Shampoo and conditioner, all in one bottle. A little makeup bag. A razor. She didn’t really need a blow-dryer, but if she did, Eve would have packed one—or two. From the size of the suitcase, Eve was planning to take everything she’d ever owned.

Back in the bedroom, Claire almost shut her suitcase, then stopped and frowned. “What did you take?” she asked. “For, you know, protection?”

Shane lifted himself up on his elbows. “What, like, uh,
protection?”

“No!” She felt her face flush, which was pretty ridiculous, considering what they’d done this morning. “I mean, against any vampire things that might happen. You know.”

“Stakes in the bottom of the duffel bag,” he said.

“Brought some extra silver nitrate in bottles, too. We should be okay. It’s not as if there’s a big vampire problem where we’re going.”

Maybe not, but living in Morganville had made it a reflex. Claire couldn’t honestly imagine not planning for it, and she hadn’t been raised here, in the hothouse. She was surprised Shane seemed so ... calm.

But then, Shane had been outside of Morganville, for two years. And they hadn’t been a good two years, either, but at least he knew something about what it was going to be like; more than Michael and Eve, anyway.

Claire dug in her underwear drawer, came up with four silver-coated stakes, and dumped them in on top of her clothes. Just in case. Shane gave her a thumbs-up in approval. She slammed the bag shut and locked it, then wrestled it off the bed. It was heavier than she’d expected, and it wasn’t one with wheels and a handle. Shane, unasked, slid off the bed and took it from her. He lifted it as if it were the weight of a bag of feathers, went into his room, grabbed his duffel, and headed toward the stairs. As he passed Eve’s room he looked in, shook his head, and yelled, “You are totally on your own for that one!”

Claire saw why, as she looked in. Eve had closed the suitcase and somehow gotten it to the floor, but it was the size of a trunk.

At least it had wheels.

Michael was downstairs when Shane and Claire came down; Shane thumped their bags down and said, “You’d better wrangle your girlfriend’s bag, man. I would, but I don’t want to spend the entire trip in traction.”

Michael grinned and zoomed upstairs. He came down carrying the suitcase as if it were nothing. Claire noticed it was new and shiny, and had hand-applied death’s-head stickers and biohazard marks. Yeah, that was definitely Eve’s. Oh, and it was black. Of course.

“Snacks!” Eve yelped, and dashed into the kitchen. She came back with a bag full of things. “Road food. Trust me. Totally necessary. Oh, and drinks—we need drinks.” She caught sight of the cooler. “Okay, not you, Michael. The rest of us.”

They were loading the second cooler with non-blood-related drink items when the doorbell rang. Claire opened it to find Oliver standing on the doorstep. The sun was still up, but he was wearing a hat and a long black coat, which didn’t in any way make him less sinister. His hair was tied back and must have been tucked up under his hat. She wondered if it was flammable, like the rest of him. Age had made him flame-retardant, but he’d still suffer out in the sun, and eventually burst into flames, if he couldn’t get out of it.

He came in without waiting for an invitation. “Yeah, welcome.” Claire sighed and shut the door. “We’re getting stuff together. Uh, is that all you brought?” It was one bag, smaller even than Michael’s or Shane’s.

Oliver didn’t bother to answer her. He walked past, into the living room, and straight for Michael. Eve and Shane, who were bickering over the placement of the Cokes versus the bottled iced coffees, fell silent, and Claire joined them.

“You’re surely not taking all this,” Oliver said, looking at the pile of stuff on the floor. It was, Claire had to admit, a lot—mainly because Eve’s suitcase was the size of Rhode Island, but they’d all contributed. “Is there room?”

“I have a major trunk,” Eve said. “It’ll fit.”

Oliver shook his head. “I hate traveling with amateurs,” he said. “Very well. Get the car loaded. Michael and I will wait inside until the sun is down.”

He acted as if he were the boss, which was annoying, but the truth was, he was the boss. Amelie had assigned him as escort, and that meant he could boss them around all he wanted. Heaven, for Oliver. Hell, for everybody else.

Claire shrugged silently, then picked up her suitcase and backpack and led the way.

Packing the car was hilariously awful, because trying to get Eve’s suitcase wedged in was a drama nobody needed. It finally worked, and everything else fit in, including the guitars and the coolers. It left the three of them sweaty, annoyed, and exhausted, but by the time they’d worked it all out, the sun was safely down.

Nobody tried to call shotgun. Oliver took the front seat, Michael got in the driver’s seat, and Eve, Claire, and Shane took the back. It wasn’t even all that crowded.

“Passes,” Oliver said, and held out his hand. Michael handed them over, and Oliver examined them as if he didn’t know they’d already been cleared to leave town. “Very well. Proceed.”

“Tunes!” Eve said. “We need—”

“No music,” Oliver said. “I will not be subjected to what you consider tunes.”

“FYI, I know it’s a disguise, but you even suck at being a hippie,” Eve muttered. “At least like the Beatles or something.”

“No.”

“It’s going to be a really long trip,” Shane said, and put his arm around both Claire and Eve, since he was in the middle. “But at least I’ve got all the babes. Backseat, for the win.”

“Shut up,” Michael said.

“Come back here and make me,
Dad.”

Michael and Shane exchanged rude gestures, and then Michael started up the car and pulled away from the curb. Eve squirmed in her seat and clapped her hands.

Oliver turned and glared at her. He took off his black hat and set it on the dashboard, next to Eve’s nodding skeletal figurine. “Enough of that,” he said. “It’s bad enough I have to be trapped in a car with you children. You’ll do your best not to
act
like children.”

“Oliver,” Michael said, “back off. It’s our first time out of town. Let us enjoy it a little.”

“The first time for some of you,” Oliver said, and looked out the window as the houses of Lot Street began to roll by, one after another. “For some of us, this is not quite as life-changing an event.”

That was kind of true, but still, Claire felt Eve’s excitement was contagious. Michael was smiling. Shane was enjoying being the dude in the backseat. And she was ... leaving Morganville behind, at least for a little while.

At the town limits, Claire watched the WELCOME TO MORGANVILLE sign approach. This side said PLEASE DON’T LEAVE US SO SOON!

They rocketed past it doing at least seventy, maybe eighty miles an hour. Beyond the sign sat a police cruiser—one of Hannah Moses’s crew. Claire felt her breath rush out, but the cop behind the wheel just waved them on, and Michael didn’t even slow down.

Morganville, in the rearview mirror.

Just like that.

It shouldn’t have been so easy,
Claire thought. After all that, all the fighting and the terror and the threats.

They just ... drove away.

Michael switched on the radio and found a scratchy rock ‘n’ roll station, and although Oliver kept glaring, he turned it up, and before long they were all singing “Born to Be Wild,” out of tune and at the top of their lungs. Oliver didn’t, but he didn’t pitch an übervamp fit, either. Claire was almost certain that once or twice, she saw his lips moving with the lyrics.

The sunset was glorious, spilling colors all over the sky in shades of orange and red and gold, fading into indigo blue. Claire rolled down the window and smelled the cool, crisp air, flavored with dust and sage. Outside of Morganville there was scrub desert, and a lot of it. Nothing to see for miles except flat, empty land, and the two-lane blacktop road stretching into the distance, straight as an arrow.

“We have to do some jogging around on farm roads,” Michael said, once the song was over and the music shifted to something not as karaoke worthy. “Should be on the interstate in about two hours or so.”

“You’re sure you know where you’re going?” Shane asked. “Because I don’t want to wake up in the Gulf of Mexico or something.”

Michael ignored that, and Claire slowly settled into her seat, feeling relaxed and light. They’d
left.
They’d actually
left Morganville.
She could feel the same suppressed thrill and relief in Shane, and, on his other side, from Eve, whose dark eyes just glowed with excitement. She’d been dreaming of this her whole life, Claire realized. Maybe not being trapped in a car with Oliver, or that Michael would be a vampire, but leaving town with Michael had always been one of Eve’s top-ten fantasies.

And here they were, more or less, anyway, which just went to show you that your top-ten fantasies might turn out to be completely different experiences than you’d ever thought.

“We’re out,” Eve said, almost to herself. “We’re out, we’re out, we’re
out.”

“You’ll go back,” Oliver said, and turned his head to stare out the side window. “You all go back, eventually.”

“Even for a vampire, you’re a ray of sunshine,” Shane said. “So, we should probably talk about what we’re going to do in Dallas.”

“Everything!” Eve said, instantly. “Everything, everything, everything. And then everything else.”

“Whoa, hit the brakes, girl. We’ve got, what, a hundred bucks between the two of us? I’m pretty sure the all-inclusive everything party package costs more.”